


When Did You Know

by mystery_deer



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Greg is a bit of a mess, Idiots in Love, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Mycroft is a Bit Not Good, Slow Burn, doesn't follow bbc sherlock canon, john and sherlock are in it but not main characters, kind of scary but he's actually ok I promise, mycroft is nonbinary but it's not a focus of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-12 02:24:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20127160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystery_deer/pseuds/mystery_deer
Summary: Greg Lestrade invites Mycroft Holmes to a partyand it gets worse from there.





	1. Invite

“I have a favor to ask.” Greg’s words seemed to echo back to him. He could feel how they stuttered and petered out, unconfident.   
There was the sound of pages turning, silence, then his voice.   
“I’m not in the habit of granting wishes, Inspector.”

He could picture him. Mycroft, dressed to the nines despite the solidarity of his daily routine. From what he gathered he WAS a sort of genie. Or a magic eight ball. Sherlock had told him once while smoking a cigarette that had a heady, sweet smell to it;  
“My brother IS the government. If it’s a body, he’s the brain. The one behind it all.” He’d then told him that the murderer they were chasing was feeding his missing wives to his dogs, which had kept him up for weeks. God, the carnage. The barking. 

And every night, on every one of those nights after the barking had faded and the viscera had cleared. He saw Mycroft there, sitting behind his desk as always, still and stately as a statue. And his heart lurched instead of his stomach.

“You can call me Greg you know. Sherlock does.”  
“Sherlock has only ever referred to you as Inspector Lestrade or Lestrade.”  
“Will you come to my ex-wife’s thing with me?”

Silence on the other line again. He waited as Mycroft shuffled papers around and stapled something.   
“Why are you going to your ex-wife’s-”  
“It’s not- okay it’s more like my sister’s party but she’s friends with her. They’ve been friends forever that’s how we met.” Greg looked down at his scruffy boots, ran a hand along his jaw for stubble. “And she invited me. My sister, but I know she’ll be there.”

“...and why should I come?”  
“I don’t know. I just.” He breathed. “I need a date. And...I don’t really, I don’t have a lot of people who’d go right now.” 

After the divorce he’d been a wreck. Drinking, showing up late to work, always tired. He felt like there was a dark, oppressive cloud weighing him down, blinding him. People had tried to help at first but it was too much, he was too much. So when the cloud lifted enough for him to see again he saw how alone he was. 

“You don’t have to come you know, I know it’s been...hard for you.” His sister had said. He knew she’d said it because she cared, because she loved him but in that moment he felt nothing but rage roiling in his gut. It was so difficult to distinguish care from pity these days.   
Maybe the only difference was how you looked at it.

“I’m coming.” He’d said, and hung up.

“Fine.” Mycroft said.  
Greg blinked and looked up even though there was no way the other man could see him. He could see himself though, reflected in the window to his apartment.   
“What?”   
“I’m coming.” He said, and hung up.

John was a good doctor, friend, and conversation partner and so after this jarring phone call Greg immediately hailed a cab to 221B. He didn’t know of any other address that John resided in, despite him mentioning multiple times having an apartment and a medical practice somewhere in the city.  
He was always at Sherlock’s flat, and tonight was no different. 

“Greg? It’s late isn’t it?”  
“Is this about a case?” Sherlock yelled out from somewhere behind the door.   
“No!” Greg yelled back, John wincing from being stuck between them.  
“Yes yes, no case!” The doctor grumbled, turning so that Greg could no longer see his face. “Sherlock, I’m going out to the pub with the Inspector.”

Greg half-listened to their hushed conversation. As John said goodbye he leaned back, the door obscuring him partially and his tone becoming a kind of syrupy he usually reserved for patients or young children. 

They found their usual pub and ordered their usual drinks, settling into the booth tucked into the corner. Neither of them were showmen and the privacy, even amidst the somewhat rowdy bar crowd put them at ease.

“So, what’s this about?” John asked, looking tired.  
“Sorry, were you sleeping?”   
“No, no nothing like that.” He smiled to himself before schooling his expression. “This is about you! Don’t change the subject or I swear I’ll call Sherlock down here to deduce what’s wrong.”

He could imagine it. Sherlock swooping into the place, ignoring all the eyes on him and launching into a gleeful deduction about how he had the hots for his brother. Greg shuddered. 

“God no, please have mercy.” They laughed. Somewhere in the bar the music changed to something slow and someone whistled.   
“I...do you think if you and Sherlock-” He paused, scratching his head. “Do you think if Sherlock was a woman you’d, you know...be interested? In him?”

John took a drink from his mug, looking off into the distance. Greg’s heart pounded, worried that he’d somehow figured something out. It was sometimes easy to forget how smart the doctor was in his own right when he was next to Sherlock. 

“I don’t...I don’t think that the nature of our relationship would change.” John said carefully, and Greg wondered if it was the lights or the heat of the bar that made his face appear so red.

Watson coughed and looked away. “Why do you ask?”  
“I...Mycroft-” Greg started.  
“Sherlock’s brother!?”  
“Oh, have you met?” John made a noise that indicated that if they had met, he didn’t wish to meet again soon. In the booth behind them someone began speaking on the phone in french. “Oof, that bad?”

“He isn’t the most pleasant man. Gave me the creeps honestly, don’t know how Sherlock and him came from the same woman.”

Greg thought of Sherlock and Mycroft. The way they spoke too fast sometimes, how when they were in the same room together it was like they were in another, private world. He thought about their eyes. Sherlock’s piercing, brimming with curiosity and good humor while Mycroft’s were dull like pennies, brown jewels plucked and placed in a doll’s head. Mycroft's eyes...  
He remembered how he looked, surrounded by the ever-changing content of his office. Everything around him was as fluid as the river and he was a rock in the middle, letting the water run off him. Sturdy, calm, watchful.   
He couldn't think about that right now. Shouldn't. John was looking at him.

“Yeah. Uh, he’s going to a party with me.” Greg winced at his friend's startled laughter, his drink spraying across the table.   
“Jesus!”  
“God! Sorry! I just- a PARTY? What’d you do to him!?”  
“Nothing! I just - I asked, but it was a joke!” He felt his own face flush as he took a swig of his beer. Why had he even come here? “A joke…” he mumbled. He felt like he was being watched, like the universe was wagging its finger at him. "I don't know. Anyway..."

He and John continued drinking throughout the night and when they finally stumbled outside the sky was a light pinkish blue.   
“Uh-oh! The missus gonna be pissed at you?” Asked Greg, half-carrying John back to 221B.  
“Who?”  
“Sherlock!”  
“Ah, Sherlock? Oh! There’eis!” John slurred, suddenly lurching away from the inspector and into the arms of Sherlock, who was exiting the apartment building in a hurry. His face lit up when he saw the doctor approaching and Greg wondered if he was going to go looking for him.

“Hm? Watson! Good to see you in good health.”  
“‘Mso...tired.”  
“I can see that. Come now, up…”

Greg watched as the two of them held onto each other, Sherlock helping John up the stairs without glancing back at him. Neither of them did, too wrapped up in each other to notice. He felt his heart ache a little as he spun on his heels with a wolf whistle and vanished into the throng of people. The image of Sherlock’s gaze, so lovingly and completely focused on John, was nearly haunting in its intensity. 

How lucky, he thought. To be so singular to someone in this crowd of millions.


	2. Hook Line & Sinker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft and Greg meet and neither of them are very pleased.

Mycroft sat in a feeble, twitching darkness. The only illumination coming from a chandelier that he had installed in his bedroom.  
He didn’t live in this house often but he made it a policy to have every bedroom he stayed in look the same, to encourage more restful sleep.

He stared at a picture of the inspector’s ex-wife and applied lipstick. A dull red, the same shade and from the same brand that that woman wore. Or had worn when the picture was taken.

Greg's words repeated over and over again in his head and he felt his blood boil, heart break.   
A joke.  
Well.

If the Inspector wanted to play games, then he would as well. Mycroft traditionally had no trouble winning such games.  
He was an incredibly experienced player, he thought ruefully, blotting his lips.

He practiced smiling in the mirror. Gregory’s ex-wife’s teeth were situated in her mouth differently. They were crooked where Mycroft’s were straight. Nothing could be done about that.  
He looked up at the clock on his wall and felt anticipation and dread crawl its way up his chest. It was almost time.  
_____________

Greg waited in front of his house. They hadn’t discussed where or when they would meet so he just trusted that the man would magically appear when the time was right.  
This proved to be the correct assumption when a black car pulled up. 

He wouldn’t even have known the car was there if the driver hadn’t rolled down the window and gestured for him to come closer. It looked as if the night had grown an arm. 

“Are you Gregory Lestrade?” Asked the driver who he couldn’t see clearly. He had a French accent that nearly painted over his speech.

Everything’s a mystery huh, he thought, rolling his eyes.  
“Uh, yeah.”  
“Get in.” 

He climbed into the back, noticing that someone, probably Mycroft, was sitting across from him. The bastard had veritable couches installed. 

“Yeesh, not gonna buy me dinner fi-” He paused, inhaling sharply.  
The person across from him was a woman who looked the spitting image of his wife when shrouded in darkness.  
He almost ran from the car, thinking this was all some sort of elaborate trap, when suddenly he heard her laugh.

Him laugh.

“Mycroft?” He asked in disbelief, relaxing slightly. His body had been pressed unknowingly against the seat as if trying to escape.

“Yes, do you like the new look?” He asked. Greg could feel his smile even though he couldn’t see it. He had half expected the other man’s teeth and eyes to shine despite the light or lack thereof.

“I...you look like…”  
“Goodness, you’re speechless I see.” He even smelled like her. That light perfume brought him back years and years. To when they were both young and his heart ached. 

Before he could say anything else the doors were locked and the car was shooting off into the night.  
They trap had snapped shut.  
They were going to the party.


	3. Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Greg demands answers and Mycroft gives them

Gregory’s friends, or his sister's friends, were delightfully predictable. Boring. Mycroft had learned how to make people like him decades ago, he just rarely cared to try anymore. That was more Sherlock’s prerogative.

He remembered being a child and learning how to smile and marvel at his father’s guests. How to widen his eyes just so in surprise, awe. Being female just meant he had to do this far more often and unsubtly. 

The inspector was quiet throughout this little show. He’d been quiet since first seeing him in the car and was now taking every chance he had to grab alcohol and deposit it directly down his throat.

“She’s a keeper Greg, just your type~!” Said a man whose name Mycroft hadn’t caught. He smiled at him shyly and waved away the compliment. 

“Yeah she’s a peach.” Gregory said, grabbing Mycroft’s arm and hauling him away somewhere. Mycroft felt the other man’s grip slowly slacken as he realized that he wouldn’t be resisted or fought off and felt it tense once more when they were alone. 

It looked to the coatroom, or a spare bedroom functioning as such. He could hear the music outside and now that the door was shut he realized how loud it had been. He exhaled minutely and wrapped his arms around himself, leaning against a wall. This was all awful, he hated this.

“What are you doing!?” Greg hissed, letting go of Mycroft’s arm. “Why are you dressed like my wife? Why are you pretending to be someone else? Do you like torturing people or something?”

“You certainly have a lot of nerve don’t you?” Mycroft asked, voice draining of the softness he’d injected into it when playing the lover. He widened his eyes and hoped it’d keep them from tearing up. He hadn’t shed a tear in front of someone since he was in elementary school. 

“What?” Greg asked, anger quickly turning into confusion. Mycroft smiled, wide and unsettlingly absent of any joy.

“I heard you. You said to the good doctor that you asking me here was a joke.” He watched as the other man’s expression went from shock to horror. Honestly, for a detective inspector he was quite…

“Mycroft I-”  
“Oh calm down. I’m used to it.” Mycroft felt his expression drop like a brick into water. Sinking, sinking…  
“I’m used to being a deeply unwanted prize.”

He remembered children at school daring each other to confront him, to poke him, to talk to him. Sitting through giggling faux-conversations with people watching him, waiting for something. Seeing if they could trick him into believing that anyone could genuinely want to be in his presence. 

He remembered in high school and college being asked on dates just to be laughed at when he accepted. He remembered being alone.

Even when he was first starting out, climbing the government’s rungs like a spider, he had to wade through false friendships. False relationships. He had once had to end a two year romance after he’d found the man’s computer was full of intel he was collecting as a spy for a warring nation. 

He had expected no different from Greg, he told himself, his stomach lurching for some reason. It was strange and something he’d felt when he’d heard Greg’s words the first time. 

Just a joke.

“Now that that’s over, I’ll be leaving. Please only contact me again if it’s in a professional capacity. And even then, try not to.” 

And with that he speed-walked from the room, the feeling in his stomach spreading until it wrapped itself tightly around his heart and squeezed so hard he felt like he was physically in pain. 

Which was why there were tears in his eyes.


	4. Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An understanding is reached.

Fuck. Greg thought, watching Mycroft leave.  
Fuck.   
He was torn between being angry that he was spied on and being angry that he’d said it was a joke. He wanted to race after him and tell him it wasn’t- tell him...tell him...what?

Don’t leave?  
Don’t cry?

Don’t go.

He opened the door and chased after him, eyes scanning for movement but he wasn’t here anymore.   
God, he was drunk. His movements felt clunky and slow but he was still a detective dammit. One of Scotland Yards’ finest.

He ignored the few people calling for him to come over, come back and instead pushed open the doors of the building and began yelling.   
“Mycroft!” He cried, walking quickly down the stairs, tripping twice. The night was almost giving way to day but not yet. Not yet.   
“Mycroft please!” 

He continued to walk blocks like that. Apologizing and pleading for the man to come out. His walking turning to jogging to running aimlessly into the night.

He stopped to rest at a random park bench, feeling adrenaline still coursing through his veins but his sides were cramping from running so long and screaming at the same time. His legs felt like cinder blocks.   
“Mycroft please, I’m sorry.” He said aloud to no one. “I didn’t mean it I was...I was scared and being stupid and I-” He paused as a figure made its way to him.

Mycroft, standing there in front of him. His wig was gone and he was wearing a coat over the dress. His makeup was absolutely ruined, he was frowning down at him and he looked perfect.

“-...I like you. I like you a lot.” Greg rasped, transfixed.

Mycroft said nothing but moved towards him again, and Greg’s heart stopped.  
And then he was being engulfed in warmth.  
For some reason he hadn’t expected Mycroft’s body to be so warm, so human.  
He leaned up and captured the other man’s lips in his, pleasantly shocked by how his heart fluttered like it was the first time.  
He was even more shocked when Mycroft kissed back instead of backhanding him and storming away, which had been a very real possibility in his mind.

After a while they broke apart and Greg realized with mild horror that he’d pulled the other man into his lap. Mycroft’s eyes were half-lidded and fuzzy but his lips curled up into a smile at whatever look Greg’s face had on.   
“You’re going to catch your death of cold.” He said, standing up and brushing off his coat as Greg sat, a bit shell-shocked. “Here.”

And then there was a scarf around his neck, soft and warm and it smelled like whatever cologne Mycroft was always wearing though he couldn’t place the exact scent. It was just him, Mycroft.  
“I really didn’t mean it.” He whispered, feeling eyes peering down at him. “I was scared, I didn’t mean to hurt you and I’m sorry. It was stupid.”

“Yes it was. But I owe you an apology as well.” Greg looked up. Mycroft was looking off into the distance, hands in his pockets but not slouching. He never looked anything less than perfect. He wanted to change that, in time.

“I overreacted due to...past experiences.”  
“Want me to arrest ‘em?” And now their eyes were meeting again. He’d never seen Mycroft smile like that, he felt his whole body warm just looking at it. Open and wide and slightly lopsided.

“Goodness Inspector~” He had no idea what that meant really but he gathered it was good from the look of him. He wondered how in the world Mycroft kept himself so bottled up, when there was all this inside. He looked like light itself.

“I appreciate the offer but I’ll have to refuse it. As I was saying though, you didn’t deserve that. I should have judged you by your own merits instead of assuming the worst.”  
“I get it, it’s hard to trust that people have the best intentions sometimes.” He grinned and noticed the way Mycroft’s face twitched slightly. In joy, he hoped. “I think the world of you though My. I promise you that.”

He reached out and took the gloved hand of the British government, which was shaking. He assumed from the cold because to assume anything else would be stupidly vain.  
“I wish I could have gone to that party with you. Instead of...uh, my ex-wife.”  
“I feel the same way. Though I do think I look wonderful as a blonde.”

Greg laughed and he could hear Mycroft do the same. His laugh was low and soft and even, it made Greg sound like a hyena by comparison but from the kiss on the cheek he received he guessed that the other man didn’t mind.

“Please see me tomorrow if you can Inspector.” Mycroft said, slipping something into Greg’s jacket pocket. “I will eagerly await your arrival.”

And then he was alone on the bench. It began to snow and he couldn’t feel his ears or hands but still, he felt warmer than he’d been in a long time.   
He felt like the sun was in his belly and chest and he was sure that when he opened his mouth to speak that light shone out of it.

“John!” He’d cried out, not waiting for the other man to respond as he hurried down the street, holding out his arm for a cab home. “I’m in fucking love!”


	5. Satiated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lovebirds have a conversation, plans are set.

“When did you first realize you were gay?” Greg asked.  
He felt strangely at ease in Mycroft's office, since the last time he'd been there. Though he guessed any ease at all would be strange.  
It was the morning after and he had a horrid hangover, it was a good thing that this office always had mood lighting which meant it usually dim and intimidating.

Mycroft widened his eyes in a way that communicated annoyance more than shock and Greg backpedaled a bit, Mycroft’s smile was tight and unmoving. “I just mean like, when...did you always know or?” Mycroft’s eyes tracked him as he nervously shifted from one foot to the other, unblinking. God, he really earned his reputation. 

“If you don’t want to talk about it…” Greg stood there a moment longer than comfortable before Mycroft caught the dangling sentence just before it shattered to pieces on the floor.  
“When I was a teenager.”  
“I can’t imagine you as a teenager.”  
“I looked the same but smaller. In every sense but physical.”  
“It really does my head in when you say stuff like that.” Mycroft’s smile widened and it felt like a step in the wrong direction. 

“Why do you want to know?”  
“Because...I want to know more about you.” He remembered the other man’s lips on his, the weight of his body, their bodies, pressed against one another. “I like you.” 

Mycroft breathed out a sigh of laughter. Greg raised an eyebrow. “What?”  
“You’re so very honest.” He said, with a tone that reminded Greg of his school days. Of sentences like 'I love how you just wear anything you want, I would never have the confidence.' Then he remembered last night, that face. 

“Mycroft do you like me?”

Mycroft’s mask seemed to slip off for a moment and beneath it was something starkly vulnerable.  
“Is this all a game to you?” He asked, looking out the fake window. Anything but that face (could he resist the urge to dive over that desk and kiss him?)  
“I don’t kiss people for the sake of trivial games.” Greg grinned.  
“I think you absolutely would.”  
Mycroft hummed pleasantly. “It’s too much effort, I have people for that.”  
“You really do say the most cliche stuff ever sometimes.”

They sat in silence for a moment, basking in thoughts of each other. Greg felt giddy, he felt like how he'd felt when he first met his wife. That wonderful, unnameably fluttering in the chest. God, he hoped he wouldn't actually giggle. He'd jump right out the window if he honest to God giggled in front of Mycroft.

“When did you realize you were bisexual?” Greg blinked and opened his mouth to deny it before shaking his head. This was new, it was all so new.   
“I kind of knew since I was in college? I didn’t...I didn’t KNOW know though. Not until later, and I didn’t come out until...I don’t know, what month is it?”

He remembered Mycroft’s face when they parted, genuine and soft and a bit dazed and even the memory made Greg’s face flush.   
“I had a crush on a boy at school," Mycroft said as if flinging the memory off the tips of his fingers. "he was uninterested in pursuing a relationship. Which is a running theme in my romantic history.”   
“Oh.”  
“I first had sex with another man when I was in college. My first year.”  
“Didn’t waste any fuckin’ time did you?” Greg laughed. Mycroft smiled and it didn’t terrify him, so, that was good. That was progress. 

“My first time with a guy was also in college. We were wasted though, and it was at a party so I can’t remember his name or nothin’.”  
“I could find him for you.”  
“Sweet offer that I’m gonna have to refuse.” Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “Vehemently refuse!”

“You’re no fun.” Mycroft purred and suddenly Greg wanted to be back in college. He wanted to be young and trim and stupidly confident about everything and he wanted to see Mycroft across the room. He wanted to be drinking with him and his strange rotating door expressions and he wanted to drag him off to some abandoned empty room while the music pounded on the door and Mycroft purred under him. “You’re no fun~”

“You look wonderful now.” Mycroft said, disrupting whatever fantasy he’d created. “I don’t mind at all that your lips are chapped.”  
“What?”   
“I like you, Inspector.”

Greg attempted to respond but found himself blocked by another pair of lips on his. Mycroft kissed well. He’d had people who kissed better and people who’d kissed worse but Greg didn’t have the luxury to rank or even think about anyone or anything else at the moment. His mind was stuffed full of Mycroft’s name, Mycroft’s taste, Mycroft’s scent, MycroftMycroftMycroft. That beautiful, horrible name.

When they parted the sun was setting. The sun had been setting when they first made contact as well but the colors had changed so Greg still marked it as a win. He wondered if Mycroft enjoyed sunsets.

“So...you like me?” Greg wondered if his lips were chapped and dry.   
“I believe I’ve provided you with ample evidence to come to your own conclusion, Inspector.”  
“If you like me then call me Greg!”  
“You’re very hung up on that.”  
“Well how’d you feel if I made out with you and then just called you Holmes?”

“I don’t know. You call me Myc don't you?” He said, already becoming re-immersed in his paperwork. Greg thought he saw the tint of redness to his face though.“Do you know your way out?”  
“Yeah, it's kind of a one-way deal Myc. And I call you that because it's a pet name!" Greg said indignantly, standing and gathering his coat. 

Mycroft looked up at the nickname, eyebrows raised and Greg felt that he was grinning. He loved this, he loved this honest Mycroft. These reminders that Mycroft was as human as anyone else. 

“Gregory is as well.” He looked at Mycroft and watched as for one brief and brilliant moment he smiled, wide and bright as anything, before his expression was once again dulled to a pleasant neutrality. “This was an enjoyable visit but I have work I need to be doing.”

“Will you be done in time for dinner?” A hesitation, and then-  
“Yes. I’ll pick you up.” 

Greg left Mycroft’s office feeling as if he were walking on air. Like he was twenty again and whistling his way through life.   
He was hungry already.


End file.
